If you’ve used brainwave entrainment and experienced any benefits, feel free to share your experience in the comments section below. Be sure to discuss why you believe the entrainment was effective and/or whether you think it could’ve been a placebo effect. I’ve played around with the products and feel as if they are great for relaxation enhancement, inducing a temporary perceptual change (i.e. altered state of consciousness), and arousal reduction.
Generally speaking, the brain will usually entrain to the strongest stimulus which would be isochronic tones over binaural beats. So when you see people add binaural beats at a different frequency to the isochronic tones, that would not produce additional brainwave entrainment at another frequency. If they are both at the same frequency I haven’t seen any research to indicate whether that would be beneficial or not, but my belief is that it would weaken the potential for entrainment. When you look at the waveform of an isochronic tone there is a distinct empty space between each beat, making it very pronounced and effective. When you add binaural beats at the same frequency it looks like this: http://www.mindamend.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/isochronic-tones-binaural-beats-combined-waveform.jpg. The depth of the waveform is now half as deep and less effective. This is before the binaural beats are formed inside your head, where the waveform is hard to determine and measure. From listening to that type of combination the beats sound much less pronounced, which has to make them much less effective in terms of a brainwave entrainment stimulus, compared to isochronic tones on their own.
Theta waves have a frequency between 4 and 7.5 hertz, making them slower than more wakeful alpha but faster than the dreamless slumber of delta. Theta brainwaves are the frequencies of nighttime dreams and REM sleep when the brain goes through bursts of activity and eye movement. People also experience theta waves in a state of light sleep, deep relaxation, during meditation and prayer, and when daydreaming. Theta waves produce an experience of inward wakefulness where we become disengaged from the outside world while engaging in inner activity. At the lower frequencies of theta, sleeping states are experienced, and at the higher range of frequency, awake relaxed states are experienced.
Was wondering if you could give me a little more background on the suggested 2hr usage limit. I’m in LOVE with these CDs. Spent two months 2-3 times per day with ‘Equisync II’, and earlier this week shifted over to ‘Equisync III’. Since moving into Equisync III, I’m naturally drawn in my morning sitting to about 1 1/2 hrs with the tracks looping through my iPod. Then I sit again at night. I feel great. So is the 2hrs suggested for people with little prior meditative experience, is it a precaution for those whose psyche may be more fragile and prone to getting uber spacey and not managing their lives?
The phenomena of brainwave entrainment was first described in the scientific literature in 1973 by Gerald Oster in results published in an article in Scientific American entitled, “Auditory Beats in the Brain”. He showed that a specific brainwave could be induced when a person heard two separate, but closely related, sound frequencies, one in each ear. He discovered that when the frequencies heard by each ear differed by about 10 hertz, the brainwave pattern of the person hearing the sound would synchronize to the difference between the two frequencies. For example, if the person heard a 410 hertz sound in one ear and a 400 hertz sound in the other ear, their brainwaves would stabilize at the difference between the two, or 10 hertz. This technique is called binaural beats, and it is a fundamental principle of brainwave entrainment methods.

I have read something different about theta waves and learning languages. A University of Washington study tested students resting brainwave activity before learning French. They found that students with a higher amount beta/gamma and a lower amount of delta/theta activity were better at acquiring a second language. When you are dominant in theta, that is the lowest and most deeply relaxed awakened state you can be in. I think it would be much harder to really concentrate, fully understand and learn new information while in a theta state, so I would personally consider using theta while studying.

Delta brainwaves, resonating at 1Hz-4Hz, usually only occur in the deeper levels of sleep. It is even uncommon to access Delta brainwaves through meditation, unless one is very advanced, or is using brainwave entrainment. Even while using brainwave entrainment technology, it will take some mental training and practice to be able to maintain conscious awareness and not fall asleep.
Beta stimulation: There is evidence that stimulation within the beta range can improve attention, measures of intelligence, relieve short-term stress, decrease headaches, and decrease behavioral problems. Some evidence even suggests that beta could decrease emotion-based exhaustion. Many people with slower frequency brain waves may benefit from regular beta stimulation.
Memory: There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that brainwave entrainment improves memory. However since cognitive function improves as a result of entrainment, short and/or long term memory may be improved by stimulation with certain frequencies. While lower frequencies may be beneficial for recalling certain memories, conscious processing of the memories generally requires sufficient beta.

The only downside is that there is a limited choice available – only 8 tracks in fact (but they are so powerful you are likely to forgive them). The tracks range from the performance enhancing Deep Concentration, the amazing Crystal Clear Mind (which I count as one of my secret weapons when I want to get something done quickly to meet a deadline). And the awesomely mind expanding God Consciousness.

Hi Ulka, thanks for your compliment on my article. Unfortunately, I haven’t come across any studies or much discussion about the problem with habituation and isochronic tones and how to overcome it. The consensus among experienced users is to regularly change the frequencies and music soundtracks you listen to. Adding music to the tones does change the waveform you are stimulated with, so that’s one of the main reasons why I provide different soundtracks for my isochronic tones sessions. I have released some tracks which use amplitude modulations in the music, instead of isochronic tones. It might be worth giving them a try if you haven’t already. I have them in a playlist on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj5tHl2cuWw&list=PLveg0IEcZWN6OIRZyLkv0BJADY7Q6xFCl.
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I also believe that the dangers of brainwave entrainment should be further explored as well. There are relatively vague benefits, but it remains unclear as to whether entraining certain frequencies may be detrimental to performance or induce harm. Despite the fact that brainwave entrainment has existed for a long term, it remains an understudied niche in neuroscience.

Most programs start at a work/life busy brain Beta frequency of twenty light flashes per second (20Hz) and slowly ramp them down to Alpha (relaxation and meditation) at 8-12 HZ, Theta (deep relaxation and dreaming) at 4-8 Hz) and Delta (dreamless deep relaxation) of .5-4Hz. We have taken measurements at Mass General with state of the art EEG equipment and have seen a slowing of the brain waves from Beta to Theta in two minutes and complete brain wave harmonization in the left, right, anterior, posterior and occipital regions of the brain.

By the 1980s, entrainment technology had merged with advancements in microelectronics technology, making it possible to develop even more sophisticated audio and visual brainwave entrainment products for the marketplace. In the last two decades, a number of scientific studies have reported brainwave entrainment as an effective remedy for ADD, academic learning problems, and improving memory and cognition.
Brainwave entrainment is a field of study and endeavor founded in the same physiological and psychological processes that make music, drumming, and chanting so powerful as methods for transforming the mind and spirit and aiding in healing of the body. These processes involve how the electrical energy in our brains synchronizes with sounds and visual stimuli, producing a particular brainwave frequency and its associated mental states.
First discovered by biophysicist Gerald Oster at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, Brainwave Therapy sends pure, precisely tuned sound waves of different frequencies to your brain via stereo headphones. In his EEG research, Oster discovered that when different vibrations, or sound frequencies, are delivered to the brain separately through each ear (as with stereo headphones), the two hemispheres of the brain function together to "hear" not the external sound signals, but a third phantom signal. This signal is called a binaural beat, and it pulses at the exact mathematical difference between the two actual tones. For example, a signal of 100 Hz delivered to the left ear, and a signal of 107 Hz delivered to the right creates a binaural beat of 7 Hz that in this case falls into the Alpha range
The formal name for this process is called the “frequency following response”, where the human brain will literally “follow” a specific frequency/beat after being exposed to it for (usually) about 8 minutes. Technically the definitive term “entrainment” does not exactly match the actual process of what is happening to your brain when listening to these audios, but its close enough, and the name has stuck now with these products becoming more popular and widely known.
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Joseph Kao, creator of Journey to the Center of the Self, a deep, 30-minute, guided transpersonal meditation, accompanied by music embedded with advanced brainwave entrainment technology and followed by 30 minutes of only the brainwave entrainment music, talks with iAwake’s CEO, John Dupuy, about all that went into the making of this meditation tool masterpiece. Transcending and Including the Little Self John: One thing I find so remarkable about your guided meditation in Journey to … [Read more...]

Alpha (12hz – 8hz) – Awake, but deeply relaxed. Simply closing your eyes will produce alpha brainwaves. This category is associated with daydreaming, visualization, imagination, light meditation. Brainwave expert Anna Wise called the alpha range the bridge between beta and theta. (More information can be found in Wise’ book The High-Performance Mind)
Hi please can u help me I have anxiety mainly due to sleep issues and I tried hypnotherapy two years ago and I had a very bad effect I have tried to reverse it but it’s not too good I always have to get into this trance at nite and then try to sledp I wake up in the morning with my head pulling every day if I listen to delta wave music will it help me get out this state and dies delta wave music gradually take u down to sleep please help urgent
I would like to share with you my experience after using EquiSync for three weeks. First of all, I am so amazed how fast I can put myself in a meditation state. During meditation, I feel some kind of a sensation I could not explain. I feel the rain dropping on my face and sometimes my legs. I feel the breeze of a tropical weather as if I was in the forest. I always sleep for a very short time at night and I have a very high sense of smell all my life. Using equisync I still sleep less, but am more relaxed when I wake up. During meditation, I can also smell the forest as if I am in the forest.
First of all, thank you for a most remarkable achievement. I have tried products in the past that purported to synchronize meditation-level brain waves — usually overlain by sappy new-age music composed by non-composers — and was invariably disappointed. However, I have been using your Equisync II and Equisync III recordings for a few weeks now and the results are truly astonishing and live up to the claims on your website.
1) Theta Music Meditation from Unexplainable Store. Yep, you guessed it, this is a meditation MP3... with music. Boom. This is a nice, simple, powerful 20 minute session and (like all my recommendations) guaranteed 100% to work every time. Find yourself drifting away with this awesome recording, and start to reap the benefits of your underused theta brain waves. Simple and understated, my favourite.

I’ve experienced all sorts of internal effects, ranging from feeling “high” to losing all awareness of my body, to seriously feeling like my head was turned completely backwards, only to just have to open my eyes to find it facing straight forward where I left it, to drifting into transcendent states of mind that can hardly even be described with words.

A very pleasurable experience during listening (and often for some time afterwards). As Holosync® changes your brain wave patterns to those of deep meditation, the brain produces several very pleasurable neurochemicals, including endorphins (the same endorphins responsible for “runner’s high”)…as well as several hormones with a profound and positive effect on longevity, aging, stress, and well-being.

They use a proprietary process of ‘3 point dynamic audio entrainment’ which means that they use both binaural beats and isochronic tones, layered together with another process called temporal entrainment (the stretching and compressing of sound waves in order to speed up or slow down the brain). This 3 pronged effect on your brainwaves is very powerful, so powerful they are currently in the process of trying to patent it.

The reported PMS symptoms that improved included: affective lability, anxiety, appetite changes, bloating, breast tenderness, concentration difficulties, depression, fatigue, and irritability. Researchers noted that there was a clear “trend” toward a reduction in social withdrawal as a result of symptoms as well. A total of 49/50 women reported improvements.

Different people have different requirements when it comes to frequency changes in the music and it's quite impossible for us to anticipate them all. We would need to produce so many different variants of all our music productions that it would be impractical to manage and confusing for our customers. For example, if we were to start raising the frequency from theta up to alpha between the 50-60 minute mark of a piece of music, this would be useless to someone who used the music for a guided meditation that was only 45 minutes long. In the early stages of the development of our brainwave entrainment music we had so many different requests from different people that we could only opt for the simplest solution, which is to use a consistent frequency throughout. It might not be the absolute "perfect ideal", but this is still a very effective technique and the feedback we've received on our brainwave entrainment music has always been exceptionally positive.

Hi Sahil, it’s hard for me to speak about other people’s tracks and videos, as I don’t know how they created them either. If you’re interested in a particular track/video and unsure about it, try asking the creator a question or two about the track, what frequencies were used and for how long, what software they used etc. Then make your own judgement based on how they reply to you. Jason

Because EquiSync®'s audio-based brainwave entrainment technology guides your brainwaves into various states of meditation, it helps to understand how alpha, theta, and delta waves contribute to your state of consciousness. The two charts on this page illustrate the basic benefits of each brainwave state as well as the targeting of the EquiSync programs 1, 2, & 3.
Hello Chip, I did a little research for you and it looks hopeful. “Even when a person is deaf binaural beats can work. By putting the headphones with the binaural recordings behind the ear, the sound waves travel to the brain through the scull and entrain the brain just the same.” I can not corroborate 100% that this id a fact, however, if you are willing to give it a go I would love to hear how this technique works for you. Please keep my updated as to your progress and results. ~ Maya
Alpha (12hz – 8hz) – Awake, but deeply relaxed. Simply closing your eyes will produce alpha brainwaves. This category is associated with daydreaming, visualization, imagination, light meditation. Brainwave expert Anna Wise called the alpha range the bridge between beta and theta. (More information can be found in Wise’ book The High-Performance Mind)
Entrainment is a term originally derived from complex systems theory, and denotes the way that two or more independent, autonomous oscillators with differing rhythms or frequencies, when situated in a context and at a proximity where they can interact for long enough, influence each other mutually, to a degree dependent on coupling force, such that they adjust until both oscillate with the same frequency. Examples include the mechanical entrainment or cyclic synchronization of two electric clothes dryers placed in close proximity, and the biological entrainment evident in the synchronized illumination of fireflies.[13]